100 SSSS-fics: Broken Lamps
by Windfighter
Summary: Emil awakes, finding the room dark and the Silent World... well, silent. A silence that won't last for long.
My third story for the 100 SSSS-fic challenge! The prompts for this story was "Light", which of course resulted in Emil going through some tough times. Because what's lighter than torturing your favourite characters?

* * *

Emil opened his eyes. Darkness. He closed them and tried again. Still dark. He settled up, the bed creaked beneath him. He tried to spot the others in the darkness but he couldn't even see his own two hands. Quietly he got up, tiptoed to the door. No sounds from out there. Where was everyone? He couldn't hear anyone breathing in the room.  
Emil looked around again, once again tried to spot anyone but no. He leaned down to check for Lalli under Sigrun's bed, but the scout wasn't there and he got up again. He shifted his gaze towards the ceiling, placing his hands at his sides.  
 _What could be wrong?_  
Quietly he opened the door, careful not to make a sound and awake the others in case they were still sleeping. It was dark outside the room as well. Middle of the night probably. He didn't have his watch, it had broken during a fight with a troll the other day. He looked out the window in the front of the cat-tank, but couldn't see anything out there either. He shook his head and went back towards the sleeping quarter.  
He cursed as he hit his leg on something hard, tried to feel what it was but it rolled away and he lost his balance, falling face first to the floor. He cursed again. Slowly he settled up, listened for the others.  
Had he gone blind? He seriously started considering it. But no, he was sure that wasn't the case. He got up again, but barely managed to take two steps before something rolled away under his foot again and he fell, knocking his head at a sharp corner, before landing on his nose.  
He shrieked. He couldn't hold it in. He heard sounds from the room where they were sleeping, a sharp light danced over him.  
"Emil, are you alright?"  
He didn't know who said it, his head spun around and sounds sounded muffled. Someone shook him and he groaned, carefully rolled over to his back.  
"I hid by dose."  
Slowly his eyes focused on the Dane that was leaning over him. Mikkel smiled.  
"I can see that."  
"'s dot fuddy..."  
"No, no it's not."  
Mikkel got up again and Emil could see the others peeking out from the room as well. Mikkel ushered them back with a few well chosen words about rest being important before he took something from the shelf.  
"You hit your head quite well there I think."  
"If you say I'm gonna get cancer I won't believe you."  
"You won't get cancer."  
Mikkel carefully pressed something against the side of Emil's forehead, while giving the younger boy a small cloth he could hold to his nose.  
"I don't think it's broken at least."  
Emil let out a sigh of relief and closed his eyes.  
"But..."  
"No. No, I don't want any sarcastic remark or another non-funny joke from you. It's bad enough as it is. If I were Sigrun I'd totally leave you in a ditch somewhere."  
Mikkel blinked. Then he decided that for this time the Swede would get away easy, he'd get more opportunities to prank the younger man. Emil seemed to be a magnet for trouble as it were.  
"Okay, no remarks." Mikkel pulled the cloth away from Emil's forehead. "It's not very deep, you won't even need stitches."  
Emil opened his eyes. He hadn't even considered that he might need stitches. He just hit his nose! They didn't stitch Lalli's nose up when he had a nosebleed! He tried to settle up, but the Dane held him down.  
"I need to dress the wound. Stay still."  
Emil stopped moving, and his arm slowly slid down towards the floor.  
"And keep pressure on there."  
Emil reawakened and pressed the cloth a bit too hard against the nose, causing a jolt of pain to rush through it, which in turn caused him to settle up, promtply hitting his head on the desk again. Tears of pain filled his eyes and he was certain the Dane sniggered at him.  
"This is why you should heed the medic's order."  
Emil didn't answer, instead he lifted his hand to rub his head where he had hit it. Sticky substance glued itself to his hand and he pulled it down again. Blood. His face got pale and Mikkel pushed him back down.  
"Wounds in the head tend to bleed much, but it's usually nothing to worry about."  
"Easy for you to say..."  
Emil's voice was faint and Mikkel was certain the younger man would pass out at any minute. He quickly cleaned and dressed the wound Emil had recieved as he fell down, placed a band-aid over Emil's nostrils to stop the blood from getting everywhere and then helped him up. Emil swayed a bit, but Mikkel placed an arm around him, gently led him back into the sleeping quarter and got him back into his bed.  
"What were you even doing up?"  
"...was dark."  
"Ah, I understand."  
Mikkel shook his head and placed the blanket over Emil before getting back into his own bed.  
"Try not to hit your head again during the night."  
He put out the flashlight, listened for a while as the other's went back to sleep and then fell asleep himself.

Emil slept in the next day. Sigrun had tried to shake him awake a couple of times, but he simply fell asleep again. He yawned when he finally woke up enough to be aware of his surroundings.  
The room was still dark. Not as dark as during the night, but still dark. Emil closed his eyes, opened them, blinked a couple of times. At least he wasn't blind. He looked towards the lamp in the ceiling before getting out of the bed. His head pounded, but he decided to ignore it and go look for the others. Mikkel, Sigrun and Lalli was gone and Emil stopped behind Tuuri and Reynir who were working with the books.  
"Where are the others?"  
Tuuri looked at him and smiled.  
"Sigrun didn't want to waste any time, so she took Mikkel and Lalli and went out. She didn't look very happy though..."  
Emil settled down behind them, trying to see exactly what they were doing, but quickly got bored of it. He got up again.  
"Oh, Emil. Since you're awake now. The lamp in the room has gone out. Could you change it?"  
Emil looked at her, looked towards the room and glared at the lamp. That explained it. He let out a sigh.  
"Sure, no problems. Spare lamps is in the back with the rest of the stuff, right?"  
Tuuri nodded and he got out, found one of the spare lamps and got back inside. After a couple of minutes he managed to convince Reynir to let him borrow his chair and he placed it beneath the lamp, climbed onto it. Carefully he took out the old lamp, shook it a bit to hear if it really was broken. He placed it in his pocket while putting the new lamp in, then he jumped back down.  
A feat that shouldn't have been hard, but he was still dizzy. He landed on his feet, swayed a little, then lost his balance. He landed with his upper body on Sigrun's bed, knocked over the chair and slid down to the floor. He could hear Tuuri and Reynir getting up, he could hear their voices as the hurried to the room.  
Emil blacked out again.

"How are you?"  
Emil tried to settle up, but dizzyness and feelings of throwing up overtook him and he laid back down again.  
"Gimme a minute. What happened?"  
"I'm not sure, we found you like this... Are you hurt?"  
Emil closed his eyes and tried to locate any pain, but there was only the headache he had woken up with. He shook his head and immediately regretted his action. He tried settling up again, this time it worked better.  
"How long was I out?"  
"Not long."  
Tuuri got up from where she had been sitting and stretched out a hand to help Emil. He accepted the help, letting his pride go for a few moments. When he stood up the dizzyness returned and he settled down on Sigrun's bed, rested his head in his hands.  
"Maybe you should rest some more, you don't look very good. I probably shouldn't have asked you to switch the lightbulb..."  
"'s alright. It's working now, isn't it?"  
"Oh, uhm..."  
Tuuri looked towards Reynir, who pressed a button next to the door. The room got light and Emil had to close his eyes. Tuuri said something to Reynir in Icelandic and the room got darker again. Emil opened his eyes once more, noticing both Reynir and Tuuri looking worriedly at him. He let out a sigh.  
"Alright, I'll rest. Is there at least a book I could look in?"  
He laid down at Sigrun's bed and Tuuri got out of the room and returned again after a minute with a book. She gave it to him, asked if she should turn on the light again, which Emil rejected, and then she and Reynir got back to work. Emil tried looking in the book, felt his headache increase and put it away.  
He didn't notice falling asleep, but when he opened his eyes again Mikkel was leaning over him.  
"Tuuri told me what happened. I believe you may have gotten a concussion."  
"You're not joking with me, are you?"  
"I am a doctor, I would not joke about my patients' health."  
Emil raised an eyebrow, but Mikkel ignored his unspoken question and instead patted Emil's shoulder.  
"You need rest. I will tell the others not to bother you."  
Emil almost protested, mostly on account to it being Mikkel who said it, but decided that the medic was probably telling the truth this time. Mikkel left the room and closed the door after him, leaving Emil to stare at the ceiling.  
He glared at the ceiling lamp, blaming it for what had happened, and then he closed his eyes again. Most of the headache subsided and he put his arm over his eyes as well, closing out what little light there was in the room.  
At least they had light in the room again.


End file.
